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  • Bloodgood Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'

    Sold out
    (46)
    $15661

  • Twisted Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Torulosa'

    Sold out
    $8604

  • Mushroom Japanese Cedar

    Cryptomeria japonica 'Mushroom'

    Sold out
    $9280

  • Green Laceleaf Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Viridis’

    Sold out
    (1)
    $18465

  • Lemon Lime Heavenly Bamboo

    Nandina domestica 'Lemon-Lime'

    Sold out
    $9907

  • Just Chill™ Red Tip™ Camellia

    Camellia x 'FARROWCJFRF'

    Sold out
    $2649

  • Emperor One Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Wolff'

    Sold out
    (48)
    $22811

  • Firepower Heavenly Bamboo

    Nandina domestica 'Firepower'

    Sold out
    $3929
  • Compact Japanese Holly (Ilex crenata 'Compacta'), a shrub featuring white flowers and broad-leaved evergreen.

    Compact Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'Compacta'

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    $8978

  • Dwarf Japanese Cedar

    Cryptomeria japonica 'Globosa Nana'

    Sold out
    (7)
    $9274
  • Crimson Prince Japanese Maple

    Crimson Prince Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Crimson Prince'

    Sold out
    $18465
  • Twombly's Red Sentinel Japanese Maple Tree - Tree - Nature Hills Nursery - 3 Container -

    Twombly's Red Sentinel Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Twombly's Red Sentinel'

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    $18465
  • Red Dragon Japanese Maple

    Red Dragon Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Red Dragon'

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    $16783
  • Karasugawa Japanese Maple

    Karasu Gawa Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Karasu Gawa'

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    $21002
  • Crimson Princess Laceleaf Japanese Maple Tree (Acer palmatum dissectum 'Crimson Princess'), a tree featuring red flowers and deciduous.

    Crimson Princess Laceleaf Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum dissectum 'Crimson Princess'

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    From $24999
  • Ryusen Weeping Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum 'Ryusen'), a tree featuring deciduous and broad, dense form.

    Ryusen Weeping Japanese Maple

    Acer palmatum 'Ryusen'

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    $19980

  • Glow Stick Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'NCIC2'

    Sold out
    $2659
  • Burgundy Lace Japanese Maple

    Burgundy Lace Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum var. dissectum atropurpureum 'Burgundy Lace'

    Sold out
    $18465

  • Garnet Laceleaf Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum dissectum 'Garnet'

    Sold out
    $18465

  • Hedge Box Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'FARROWICUPRT'

    Sold out
    $2759
  • Product image coming soon

    Fernspray Gold Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold'

    Sold out
    $13237

  • Just Chill® Double Mauve Camellia

    Camellia x 'FARROWCJH'

    Sold out
    $2663

Japanese Garden Plants

Japanese garden plants are chosen for structure and restraint rather than flower color: an evergreen backbone, layered branching, and a few deliberate accents. This page collects the plants Nature Hills Nursery carries that fit that discipline, including Japanese maple, Japanese cedar, Hinoki false cypress, Japanese black pine, and Pieris japonica.

Start with the evergreen backbone

The frame of a Japanese garden is green in every month, so the evergreens go in first and everything else is placed against them. Hinoki false cypress and Japanese cedar both suit zones 5 through 8 and hold a dense, layered outline. Umbrella pine works in the same range with a coarser whorled texture, and Pieris japonica fills the lower layer with broadleaf green while taking more shade than either conifer.

Plants that hold a deliberate shape

This style leans on plants that keep the form given to them. Japanese black pine is the archetype, held to open layered pads that leave the trunk line visible. Hinoki false cypress opens into flat fans that already look arranged. Japanese cedar holds a dense shaggy mass that reads as one green shape from across a small garden. Nandina does the opposite job, upright canes with airy foliage that keep a corner from going solid.

Scale for a small space

Most of these gardens are small, so mature size decides more than anything. The dwarf forms here settle between 1 and 4 feet and suit a courtyard, an entry, or a gravel bed. The upright pines and cedars run 10 to 20 feet and need to be placed as single trees with open ground around them, not packed into a border.

Color used sparingly

Green carries the garden, with the blue-green of Japanese black pine as the quiet variation. Gold and creamy white variegation works, but one accent per view is the discipline. Camellia adds a few weeks of red, pink, or white bloom in zone 7 and warmer, and a Japanese maple gives the single stretch of red or orange in fall. That is usually enough.

Choose the evergreens for your zone first, then place one accent.

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